In the Middle Ages, life for the peasant was very restricted and unfavorable.
In history class, many topics were covered reflecting on their life and the struggle
they went through to make it all worthwhile. Life for peasants could have been quite
dreadful. Yet, living had improved as Europe was closing the chapter on the Middle
ages, and the Renaissance was slowly coming into view.
There were some major problems with common medieval living. The
peasants made a hard living on a manor (headed by a noble), but were tied to the
land, as if indentured or enslaved to it. They had no political, economical, or
religious say. If they rebelled, they were considered upstarts, tried as heretics, and
often excommunicated or killed. The majority of European peasant population was
uneducated and illiterate.
The sanitary level of life was atrocious and appalling. People would usually
not wash for months or years at a time. There was little or no septic or sanitation
system. They also dumped rotten garbage near homes and in communal centers.
This situation helped yet another element spread incessantly throughout European
commonlife: disease. The Bubonic Plague was one of the worst pandemic diseases up
until medieval times because it spanned much of the European world. It attacked at
a ferocious rate, killing 25% of Europe’s total population within fifty years. This
The Essay on City Life Park Living Streets
Living in the big city the lights, the people, the night life, but is it all that its cracked up to be Or is it nothing but problem after problem. After a close look the negative side may strongly outweigh the positive. Living in the big city has become very expensive in the ninety s. The cost of renting an apartment alone is quite the financial burden, the rates do vary but in order to have an ...
caused a widespread crisis about whether or not it was the infamous “days of
Judgment,” based on the Bible. This brought many people to seek refuge in the
Roman Catholic Church for salvation.
There were some positive aspects to the peasants’ life, however. As the years
passed, the old custom of serfs being tied to the land slowly diminished, and the
peasants soon moved up the ranks into merchants and middle class. With the
invention of the printing press later on, illiteracy dropped drastically because books
became more widespread. The idea of keeping clean soon came into widespread use,
and sanitation improved slowly but surely. This greatly decimated the cases of
disease.
To conclude this paper, I would like to say, in my opinion, that peasant life in
the Middle Ages was getting worse. While things began to change, it moved very
slow and there was not much difference until the Renaissance. The life for a peasant
was utterly depressing because he worked to the bone all his life, and must have felt
worse knowing that his future family would be doing the same thing. Also, the
elements of disease, no political freedom, and war would spiral depression
downwards. Peasantry was probably a long, overworked, and sad life.
